You have put in a load of hard work into your website and it finally paid off and you see your SERP rankings going up. Then the unexpected happens. Your rankings drop. You agonize over what went wrong or if you made a mistake. You beat yourself up for not doing it right and moan that you have to start all over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
But it is not always true. It is not the ideal scenario, but\nthere\u2019s a lot that you can do to fix it. Here are a few probable reasons why\nyour search ranking and traffic have dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your site has been\nonline for several years, your keywords might have lost relevance. Take into\nconsideration your search behavior and compare that to the keywords that appear\nin your search console data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do you use industry or\nniche terminology as keywords that might not be the same keywords your\npotential customers know? Many people often\nsearch several variations of the same question and still be unsuccessful in\nfinding an answer or solution to their problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the years engineers at Google have tremendously strengthened their natural language comprehension ability. Today, people can use natural language to find results. Hence it is easier to rank for those keywords if you use content in plain language, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The search engines too have started off to rely on not just a few keywords, but they are ranking websites based on complete sentences and other elements of more natural language. Review your keywords and keywords phrases. If you are still using old or generic keywords, you need to review and revise your strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also Read: <\/strong>The Ultimate Checklist for International SEO<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n An alternative explanation on why your search engine rankings and traffic might have dropped is that you have lost links. Review your site for lost links over the last 90 days using tools like Majestic, Ahrefs, and CognitiveSEO, etc. If the tools report a significant loss, this might be the reason for the drop in rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, there are more\nquestions you should ask about this link loss: <\/p>\n\n\n\n If your inbound links\nare broken or lost, you will have to establish the origin of those links and\nthe reason behind the breakup. You may then either remove, replace, or retain\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each link should be examined one by one to figure out your next\nsteps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the links were\nremoved on purpose, it could suggest that they were not natural links and\ncould, possibly be flagged and penalized by Google. Let them go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At times links break\nor change during a site update. In such instances, you might get a chance of\npersuading the site owner to restore them. If the internal links were swapped\nwith new links to a different source, you have the choice to link to the fresh\nsource, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bear in mind, you can always switch the old links to the new ones that work. To avoid lost links impacting your future rankings, it is rewarding to invest in any link monitoring software<\/a> or programs to regularly track lost links. Thus you can be proactive and take remedial measures before you drop your rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unless you have a proper 301 redirect plan in place, you are highly likely to see a drop in rankings during the launch of a new website, migrating to a new server, or carrying out any structural changes to your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broken redirects are every SEO consultant\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> biggest nightmare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While using a 301\nredirect, you must ensure that XML sitemaps, canonical tags, and links are also\nupdated. A 301 redirect is similar to a relocation notice to the web. This\nnotice communicates to the search engine that a page(s), or the entire website\nhas been relocated and that the website visitors be redirected to your new\naddress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If done right, neither\nwill you lose your rankings, nor will you get penalized for duplicate content\nbecause search engines are indexing both the old and new versions of your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you see a sudden and significant drop in your rankings, it could probably mean that Google is penalizing your site. These manual actions are applied manually and are not the result of any algorithmic updates. If this drop is not seen on other search engines like Yahoo or Bing, this is a sure indication that you are suffering from a Google penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether or not your\npenalty is manual or automatic, you will have to resolve the issue and get the\npenalty withdrawn. A good place to start is to examine the notifications from\ninside your Google Search Console account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Look for alert notifications in the message menu and the manual actions section. Here, you will find a list of circumstances where Google has discovered certain web pages that do not comply with their guidelines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Google is constantly exploring ways to improve strategies and results by regular algorithmic updates. Many sites have seen a drop in rankings by these changes. To escape from the glitches arising from Google\u2019s updates, use a robust cross-channel marketing and traffic strategy that comprises social media and other marketing channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are instances when you might notice a dip in your search engine rankings that are due to something unrelated to your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often Google has brought in revisions to the type of results based on user behavior. For instance, if there is a sudden surge in search for a specific topic, Google may boost newer results first and bring down static content further down. If your content falls under the second category, you will see a drop in your ranking. You can observe Google trends to see if any changes might explain those inconsistencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google at times alters\nthe UX of search engine pages in ways that take away the clicks. These may be\ndue to a featured snippet popping on a key search result, redirecting the\ntraffic. Or some search experiment has impacted the click-through\nrate. Review the terms that have dropped and see if anything has\nchanged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Rankings vary based on\nthe location from which the search was made. To have a more accurate\nunderstanding of your rankings, you need to check your rankings in several areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Have you ever noticed\nthat the results for a specific search you get are completely different from\nanother person doing the same search? Also, the search results while you are\nlogged in to your Google account and the result received after logging out is\nentirely different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason behind this\nis that Google will consider your preferences, sites you have previously\nvisited, your location, and even the device used for searching before bringing\nup the search results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps, you are doing\neverything right but still, you might see a drop in your rankings. Part of the\nreason might be that your competitors are doing a better job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Closely observe your\ncompetitors by analyzing and monitoring their social media activity, link-building\nstrategies, and content marketing. Tools like Wayback Machine or Versionista\ncan be used to see what changes have been made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also Read: <\/strong>Understanding Google Core<\/strong> Web Vitals <\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Backlink tools can\nalso be used to check if they have had a new stream of new backlinks. Once you\nunderstand the changes done by your competition to outrank you, adopt those\nchanges- but in better ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Page Speed at which\nthe content on your page loads too has an impact on your rankings as well as\nwebsite visitors\u2019 user experience. When page speed is low, it takes longer to\nload your content, the bounce rates are higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Google\u2019s new and\nimproved Page speed tool incorporates real user data to provide you an accurate\nanalysis of your page speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your site\nexperiences regular server issues, it might be due to a broken caching function\nor an empty markup served to Googlebot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is important that\nyou quickly resolve any server issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Go through your server\nlogs to find the errors and use Google\u2019s Fetch and Render tool to check how a URL\non your site renders or is crawled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Losing a rank or two should not be considered the end of the\nworld. It is common to feel overwhelmed but you need not worry. Give the above\nstrategies a try and you can easily bounce back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, bear in mind that there are no shortcuts to increase your website traffic and so keep away from sketch strategies, or you could suffer the negative consequences of poor search ranking and lost traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Verbat Technologies is one of the largest SEO specialists in the industry. For your SEO and digital marketing, queries contact us.<\/a><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Web Hosting Dubai<\/a> | it companies in uae<\/a> | software development dubai<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You have put in a load of hard work into your website and it finally paid off and you see your SERP rankings going up. Then the unexpected happens. Your rankings drop. You agonize over what went wrong or if you made a mistake. You beat yourself up for not doing it right and moan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-others"],"yoast_head":"\n Lost Links <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Also Read : <\/strong>Largest Contentful Paint <\/strong><\/a><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Broken Redirects<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Manual Actions<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Also<\/strong> Read: <\/strong>Google's December 2020 Core Update<\/strong><\/a> <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Algorithm Changes<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Natural Evolution in Search<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
UX Changes in Google<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Discrepancies in Geolocation<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Competitor Improvements<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Page Speed<\/h3><\/amp-fit-text>\n\n\n\n
Server Issues<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h3>\n\n\n\n